


Crowning Mortal Temples

by whatthedruidscallme



Series: Kingdoms [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: !!! get rid of the magic ban!!, Angst, Arthur Finds Out About Merlin's Magic (Merlin), Ealdor, Established Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Happy Ending, M/M, Magic Revealed, Merthur - Freeform, Morgwen - Freeform, Night Terrors, Nightmares, Running Away, gwen finds out about merlin's magic, lightning storms, merlin uses too much magic, s4
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:09:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29789667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatthedruidscallme/pseuds/whatthedruidscallme
Summary: Arthur is the reigning king of Camelot, young and bright-eyed, intelligent and a commanding strategist. He spends his mornings training new knights, his afternoons in council, his nights with Merlin, and by all accounts, Arthur should be serenely happy. It's only when his nights grow restless that shadows begin to lengthen in the crevices of his life. Merlin's nightmares jerk them both awake in the hours before dawn, and Merlin's face grows taut and strained with secrets as the days pass by. Arthur tries fruitlessly to get the truth out of him, only to be met with hostility and anger, and turns to frustration himself. It's in the intimate silence of night when Merlin at last tells him the truth, and in the aftermath, Arthur is left to realize that there is no such thing as being unnatural, only what he has seen of human nature, and what he hasn't.
Relationships: Gwen & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Gwen/Morgana (Merlin), Hunith & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Hunith & Merlin (Merlin), Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Series: Kingdoms [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2189688
Comments: 12
Kudos: 57





	1. Temporary Propositions

The stars are coming out. 

The blue hour of dusk gleams over Camelot. The markets have closed, and only a few civilians are still out and about, meandering over the cobblestones and listening to the echo of their own steps instead of the hum and bustle of their neighbours. Homes are lit from within by a welcoming glow of fire and knights patrol the streets, chatting as their gazes skim over alleyways and swept porches. 

All seems well in the city he rules, but inside the castle, Arthur Pendragon is pacing. He breathes in a familiar coalescence of lavender, feverfew, and bitter elderberry, and the reassurance of the scent he knows so intimately should reassure him, but it doesn’t. 

The apothecary is empty of its physician. Gaius had given him a knowing, rather weary look when Arthur had come in with a nervous smile and a request for Gaius to spend the night elsewhere, and he had gone willingly, mumbling something about fresh sheets and a guest chamber he had always wanted to use. As soon as he had gone, Arthur had cleaned off the table as well as he could, giving a couple of sinister-looking vials a wide berth, and lit every candle in the chamber until the whole room was bathed in a golden, quivering glow. They still shine, casting pale shadows over the meal that has been growing cool for the past half hour and a chair that sits empty of a certain dark-haired occupant. 

So Arthur paces. 

His patience has unraveled, and he’s just about to leave to go search the castle himself when the door creaks open and Merlin stands in the threshold, his eyes widening in surprise. 

“Arthur?” Merlin asks, and comes in cautiously, his gaze flickering over the many burning wicks, the cold food sitting on the table, and Arthur himself, who stands in the middle of it all. “What are you doing?” 

“I thought we could have a nice night,” Arthur says, gesturing lamely. “I didn’t realize you’d be so long.”

“Sorry. The Lady Drummond had an awful fever,” Merlin says, peeling his jacket off and draping it over the nearest chair. He comes forward to give Arthur a quick kiss on the cheek, but Arthur catches him by the waist and kisses him properly, tracing his tongue along the seam of Merlin’s lips and restraining a faint smile when Merlin gives in to him. By the time he pulls away, Merlin’s lips are glistening and his eyes are clouded with desire. “What was that for?” he whispers, leaning into Arthur. 

“I haven’t seen you all day.” He presses another kiss into Merlin’s hair. “You’re supposed to be my servant, and instead…”

“Instead, Gaius is teaching me how to take over from him,” Merlin reminds him. “I’m busy. You know I’m training Oliver to take over my duties with you.”

“Mhmm, but I don’t want Oliver, I want you,” Arthur grumbles. Merlin wraps his arms around Arthur’s waist, resting his chin on Arthur’s shoulder. 

“You have me all night, every night,” Merlin says. “You can always come and see me while I’m working--”

“You said I couldn’t do that anymore!”

“You can as long as you let me use both hands,” Merlin says dryly. “You can’t hold one all the time and expect me still to be able to work.”

“You did fine.” 

“I spilled pennyroyal on the floor, you refused to let go of me long enough to clean it up, and the mouse that Gaius considered a friend drank it and died. We had a funeral. Gaius nearly had me indicted for murder.” 

Arthur snickers. “Forgot about that.” 

“You didn’t have to put up with Gaius’s heartbroken looks. You’d think I killed his best friend.” 

“It sounds like you did.” 

“ _ You _ did it, if I’d had both hands--”

“Yes, all right, fine, I’m a terrible person. You got me.” 

“Don’t worry.” Merlin gives him another swift kiss and then draws away, walking towards the table. “I still love you.” 

“Er--yeah, speaking of that…” 

Merlin turns towards him with eyebrows raised, already popping something in his mouth. “What does that mean? Are you planning to leave me sometime in the near future?” 

“No, I just wanted to--talk about something,” Arthur says evasively. “Regarding us. Our situation.” 

There’s a crease beginning to form between Merlin’s eyebrows. “Our situation? What situation is that?” 

“The situation where you spend every night in my bed, and all of your clothes, belongings, and everything else is still sitting in that little room over there.”

Merlin stops chewing and sets down the cup of water he just picked up. “Arthur, what are you trying to say?”

Arthur shrugs, trying to contain the nervous, fizzy excitement racing through his body. “Maybe...all your clothes should be in a more easily accessible place. Somewhere closer to where you sleep, perhaps?”

Merlin stares at him. “You can’t possibly mean what I think you mean.” 

“Move into my room with me,” Arthur whispers. 

Merlin gives an odd, hysterical laugh. “Technically, we already live in the same castle.”

“I want us to live in the same room. Together. I don’t want you to have to run back here every time you need a change of clothes, or--”

“I’m--Arthur, I’m working with Gaius, I’m his apprentice, I’m the closest thing he has to a son. I can’t just move out on a whim. If the day comes where he can’t get out of bed or can no longer mix a tincture...I have to be there for him. I have to. Not to mention me staying permanently in your rooms would be an end to marriage negotiations. Forever. There would be no way out of it.” 

“I don’t want a way out of it! If I wanted a way out of it, I’d have been a lot less obvious about the fact that we’ve been  _ sleeping together _ for a year and a half. And trust me,” Arthur adds tartly, “everybody already knows. You’re not exactly quiet, my love.” 

Merlin blushes furiously. “If you didn’t ask to  _ hear _ me every night--”

Arthur throws up his hands. “I like it! It’s not my fault you sound like you’re being brutally murdered every time we--”

“You’re the one doing it!”

“All of this is beside the point,” Arthur says, and his voice drops. “I want you with me. Every night. I’m not saying we have to spend every moment together or that you should abandon Gaius, but I just--the way we handle this, it feels like it’s temporary. And it’s not. Not for me.” 

“It’s not temporary for me either,” Merlin says softly. He walks closer and rests his hand on Arthur’s cheek. Arthur curls his hand around Merlin’s wrist and leans forward until their foreheads are pressed together. “I love you. The gods know how much. But I can’t live with you. Not like that, not yet. Okay?”

Arthur looks at him, and something about the way he's biting his lip, the skittering gaze, makes him think. “There isn't…” he says hesitantly. “There isn't something you're not telling me, is there?”

Merlin smiles, but it’s sallow and unconvincing. “Of course not. What makes you think that?”

Arthur strokes back Merlin’s hair. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”   
  


The air has grown frigid by the time they meander into bed. The glass trembles while Merlin shuts and latches all the windows, and when he turns back to Arthur, his nose is cherry red. 

“You look cold,” Arthur says, grinning up at him from where he’s buried in blankets. 

“I’m not the king of Camelot,” Merlin says, now wriggling into a pair of Arthur’s soft, thick sleeping breeches. “I don’t have a servant to comply with my every whim.” 

“I comply with most of your whims, don’t I?” Arthur asks mildly, reaching forward to pull him into bed. Merlin tumbles in next to him, a bundle of wild black hair and bright eyes and cold skin. Arthur presses forward and leans into Merlin’s neck, pressing him into the mattress. 

“Mm...you’re heavy,” Merlin murmurs. His fingertips graze slow, uneven circles on Arthur’s back. 

Arthur props himself up on his elbows and looks down at his servant. They haven’t closed the curtains yet and Merlin’s face is awash in waxen starlight, his eyes and lips drained of colour as he meets Arthur’s gaze and smiles back. “I do love you so much,” Arthur whispers. “I don’t think I say that often enough.” 

Merlin’s smile grows wider, and he stares up at Arthur with something unfathomable in his eyes. “I wish I knew why.”

“I told you that the first time. When you told me to shut up, remember? When you were cutting my hair?”

Merlin shoves playfully at him. “I remember.”

“Because of the lines in your palms and the creases in your lips...because you love everything that lives and breathes...because I know you better than the back of my own hand.” He takes Merlin’s hand and uncurls his fingers to kiss his palm. 

“I love you too,” Merlin says, but there’s something astringent in his voice, and Arthur glances at him. 

“What’s wrong with you tonight?” he asks. He leans down to kiss him and Merlin’s lips are responsive, but when he pulls away again that same empty expression is on his face. 

“Nothing,” Merlin whispers. 

Arthur studies him. “Are you sure? You don’t have to stay tonight if you’re not feeling well.” 

“It’s--it’s not that. There’s nothing wrong. Just stay close to me, okay?” 

“I always do,” Arthur murmurs, a slight frown now drawing his brows together. He wraps his arms around Merlin’s waist and settles alongside him so they’re pressed together, his hand sliding along Merlin’s soft stomach. He kisses the apex of Merlin’s spine, mouthing along his skin. It takes longer than Arthur expects, but gradually Merlin’s breathing slows, his hand slips from Arthur’s, and his lips part as he falls asleep. 

Arthur follows soon after, but it’s precious little time before he’s jerked awake by Merlin’s shriek as he wakes from a nightmare.

“They’re getting worse,” Arthur says, settin down his cup and eyeing Merlin. Rivulets of foggy sunlight dribble in through the windows and a delectable breakfast is sitting on the table, but Merlin is listless and wan, picking at food he doesn’t seem to be eating and chewing on his lip instead. 

“No they’re not,” he mutters. “You just think that because we’re sleeping in the same bed now.” 

“They are. The last few months you’ve barely gone a night without one. Before that it was maybe one a week at the most.” 

“Keeping track now, are we?” 

“Neither of us have slept through for weeks,” Arthur says patiently. “You wake screaming every night. Even the guards don’t bother to check anymore. We have to find some way to fix this, doesn’t Gaius have any ideas?”

Merlin drops his fork with a clatter. “I--no. No, he doesn’t.”

“Have you asked?” Arthur presses.

“Yes,” Merlin snaps. “There’s not much to fix nightmares.”

“They barely qualify as nightmares anymore! They’re like--they’re like visi--” Arthur stops short.  _ Visions _ . He stares at Merlin, who glares back, daring him to finish his sentence. Daring him to see the ghost of Morgana in his lover’s face. “You…”

“They are not what you think they are,” Merlin says, his voice low. “I’m not Mor--I’m not. You’re being paranoid.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, of course.” 

Merlin studies him for a long moment before abruptly shoving back his chair and getting up. “I should get started on the day.” 

“I suppose so. Merlin, could you--” Arthur starts, but he’s already walking out the door, and he doesn’t turn his head even when Arthur calls his name. 

Arthur doesn’t have time to look for him after he’s dressed, and he doubts he would be successful even if he did. Merlin has always had a gift for vanishing from sight at his own discretion. But the memory of his pinched expression stays with Arthur throughout the day, and his mind wanders at the most inopportune times, thoughts slipping clumsily over the problem he sees only a shadow of. 


	2. Like A Shrine

By the time he sees Merlin again, it’s after dinnertime. Arthur is spattered with dried mud and grass from the day’s exploits and his hair looks nearly as dark as Merlin’s own.

“Bath,” Arthur says, walking stiffly into the room. Merlin glances up from where he’s mending a tear in one of Arthur’s old shifts. 

“I’m sorry? _Don’t_ sit there,” Merlin warns as he makes to sit down. Arthur stares at him, betrayed. 

“Why not?” 

“You are a mess, and that pillow you’re about to sit on has been freshly cleaned, thank you. So you can stand or sit on the floor.” 

“Everything is...very clean.” Arthur looks around suspiciously. The hearth looks like it’s been scrubbed within an inch of its life, the wardrobe is shining, and there’s an array of small blades sitting on the table that have been polished and sharpened until it hurts to look at them. “I thought you had so much to do today?” 

“I finished it all,” Merlin says dully. Before he can answer, Arthur hears a sharp intake of breath and turns around to see Merlin shaking out his hand. Drops of blood land on the shirt and soak into the worn linen before Arthur can blink. 

“What happened?” he asks, going to Merlin and dropping to his knees. Blood is still running tranquilly from his thumb down his wrist, into the dip of his elbow. Arthur takes Merlin’s hand and looks up at him. The blood is dripping onto the floor now, spots of red glaring against the newly gleaming stone. 

“My hand slipped on the needle,” Merlin says. His head cocks at an angle and Arthur realizes Merlin isn’t looking at him, he’s looking at the blood welling up on his thumb. 

“Your hand hasn’t slipped for years,” Arthur says. He chances a glance at the shirt Merlin had been mending, and like he’d expected, the stitches are neat and almost imperceptible. “Are you sure?” 

“What else could’ve happened?” Merlin asks tightly. His wrist slides from Arthur’s grip and he gets up, walking to the drawer by Arthur’s bed where he keeps gauze and ointment. 

“Come here,” Arthur says from where he’s still kneeling on the floor. “Let me wrap it.” He holds his hand out, beckoning, and some dark cloud comes and goes over Merlin’s expression almost before he sees it. He sighs and takes the gauze out. 

“We can’t wrap it until the bleeding’s stopped and it’s clean. You know that.” 

“So I’ll call for a bath and we’ll wash it,” Arthur says.

“You want me to--”

“Yes,” Arthur interrupts. He stands up. “I’m going to call for a bath while you put pressure on that.” His eyes flicker down to Merlin's hand as he walks closer. “And then we’re going to take a bath.” 

“We?” Merlin asks, his eyebrow raising. “I don’t recall your tub being too big.” 

“I don’t recall you being too big either,” Arthur quips, sliding his hand into Merlin’s hair and cradling the curve of his jaw with his palm. Merlin’s eyes soften and close. Arthur leans forward and presses a kiss to his mouth, smiling when Merlin’s good hand comes up and curls around his wrist. “A bath will help,” Arthur breathes. Merlin’s eyes flutter open. His eyes are dazed as he leans forward to garner another kiss, and Arthur gives it to him. 

“Okay,” he whispers. 

It’s another hour before Merlin actually steps into the tub, shuddering as he sinks into the hot water. Goose flesh ripples up his legs and Arthur wraps his arms around Merlin’s chest as Merlin settles between his legs, tipping his head back to rest on Arthur’s damp shoulder. Arthur plants an absent kiss on his temple. “Feel better?” he asks. 

“You make me feel better,” Merlin says. 

“Mm...you sure? You’ve been in a weird mood lately.” Arthur takes Merlin’s limp hand and mouths against the delicate skin of his wrist, tracing the gossamer blue veins beneath it with his tongue. The water laps quietly around them.

“Yes,” Merlin says, trying to hide the catch in his voice as he shifts against Arthur’s chest. “Yes, I’m sure.” 

Arthur’s hand slides down, scraping against Merlin’s ribs as he begins to breathe harder, and then splaying up over his chest and tracing over a nipple. When Merlin swallows, Arthur hears it. 

“You’re going to have to work a little harder than that if you want to convince me,” Arthur breathes. He blows softly into Merlin’s ear, grinning when Merlin jerks against him and his fingers dig into Arthur’s thighs. 

“You--we’re trying to clean up,” Merlin says unsteadily. 

“I guess you’re right,” Arthur says, now nosing along Merlin’s jaw. “Hand me the soap.” 

Merlin leans forward to pick it up and it slips from his hand. It lands in the water, and Arthur’s hand grazes over Merlin’s hip and down his thigh before catching it in his hand and rubbing it back along Merlin’s leg. 

“And now the cloth,” Arthur whispers, and Merlin swallows again before reaching for it. It trails along the surface of the water. “Get it wet for me.” 

“Arthur--”

“What? I’m not allowed to ask you to--”

“You’re not allowed to seduce me when you’re covered in more mud than the training field,” Merlin says wryly. 

“ _ Seduce _ you?” Arthur asks in mock outrage. “I’m doing no such thing.”

Merlin turns his head to kiss Arthur’s cheek, and then makes a face. “You even taste like the training field.”

“The horrors you put up with…” Arthur sighs, propping his chin up on Merlin’s shoulder. “All for love of me.”

“All for love of you,” Merlin repeats carefully, as though he’s afraid the words have sharp edges that will slip and cut the inside of his mouth. “Yes, it is.” 

Arthur’s brow creases. “Merlin, are you ever planning on telling me what’s wrong? Or am I just supposed to suffer in unknowable silence for the rest of my days?”

“I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that there’s nothing wrong.” 

Arthur tightens his arms around Merlin’s waist, pulling him in closer, making water slop over the sides. 

“You’re getting the floor wet.” 

“I don’t care,” Arthur mumbles. “I want you to be honest with me.” 

Merlin sighs. “Can we get through a bath without you interrogating me? I just don’t--I don’t want to think for five minutes. After that we can talk all you want, okay?” 

“Oh...all right. But we’re going to talk. ”

A warm, sweet silence descends into the intimate space between them, broken only by the swill of the water and the slide and pop of bubbles along wet skin. Merlin sinks further into Arthur’s embrace as Arthur pours water over his dark hair and tangles slippery fingers through it, rubbing the soap into every curling strand in a soothing, monotonous rhythm. Only the hitch in the slow rise and fall of Merlin’s chest prompts Arthur to stop, rinsing Merlin’s hair and then using the soap to scrub along Merlin’s chest, his collarbones, down his stomach to his navel. 

“I like this,” Merlin whispers. 

“You do?” Arthur says absently. 

“You’re cleaning the nightmares away...it feels nice.” 

“Cleaning the nightmares away?” 

“They stick to my skin,” Merlin murmurs. “And in my eyes, and under my nails. I can never get them off. But you can take ordinary soap and water and scrub them away without even trying.” 

Arthur chuckles. “That’s because your nightmares know not to mess with me.” 

“Wish they’d know not to mess with me,” Merlin mutters. 

“They’ll get better.” 

“How?” 

“We’ve always found a way before. You’ve never met a problem you couldn’t find your way out of. We’ll ask Gaius and Geoffrey and try different herbs, medicines...something will work. Something always does.” 

Merlin sighs. “And what if it doesn’t? What if they never get better, what if I’m always--” he cuts himself off, biting his lip until it’s drained of colour. 

“What if you’re always what?” 

Merlin shakes his head. “Never mind.” 

“Merlin.” Command filters through Arthur’s tone. “Stop lying to me.” 

“How many  _ times _ , Arthur, I’m not lying, I’m just tired and irritated and sick of being treated like a criminal.”

“I’m not treating you like anything, I’m just--”

‘What?” Merlin asks sharply. “What, worried? Is that what you were going to say? Because worry has never done you or me any good, and frankly, I’ve had just about enough of it.” He gets up, rivulets of water cloudy with soap pouring off of him, and steps out of the bath. He wraps a towel around his waist. “I’ll sleep in my room tonight.” 

“Merlin--” Arthur says placatingly. 

“Maybe you’ll get to sleep through the night without me here,” Merlin says, and the lack of bite in his voice makes his words all the worse. 

Arthur falls silent and watches as Merlin dries his hair into a damp, curling mess and dresses, his clothes sticking to his still-wet skin. He doesn’t bother putting on his boots, just grabs them up off the floor and walks out of the room, refusing to give Arthur another glance before shutting the door behind him. And then Arthur is left alone in the cooling water with wind whistling at the windows and a pit roiling in his stomach. 

Horribly, he does sleep well. Arthur has barely sunk between the sheets and closed his eyes before waves of dreamless sleep are breaking over him, heedless of the worry nagging in his mind or Merlin’s taut, secretive gaze. 

Grey light like muted silk is bleeding through the windows when Arthur next wakes. His vision is bleary and his arms are weak, but something is tugging elusively at the corner of his senses, a single thread out of place, and he lifts his head almost drunkenly. His gaze snags on a shadow standing in the threshold of the open door. 

Arthur lurches upward, hand groping for his sword, a shout about to rip itself from his throat when the shadow steps forward and seems to shrink, resolving itself into Merlin’s familiar outline. All at once the adrenaline saps out of Arthur and he collapses back into bed, half relieved, half angry. 

“What the hell are you doing here before dawn, Merlin? I thought you wanted to sleep alone.” 

Merlin doesn’t answer. He comes closer, weighing every step before he takes it as though he’s expecting the floor to give out under him, and then climbs into Arthur’s bed and into his arms. He buries his face in Arthur’s chest and slots a leg between his thighs, a far cry from the angry man that had left Arthur’s chambers only hours ago. 

“Hey,” Arthur murmurs, all the anger draining out of him at this unexpected show of vulnerability. He strokes a hand through Merlin’s hair. “Something wrong?” 

“I don’t feel well,” Merlin whispers into Arthur’s bare chest. “I don’t think...I don’t want to…”

“Hmm? You’re ill?” 

“You might think so.” Merlin sounds odd, tremulous, when he speaks, and Arthur frowns and tips his chin up. Merlin goes easily, and shock sparks through Arthur like a thread of lightning when he sees the wetness in his lover’s eyes, just beginning to spill over his eyelashes and into the bitter cuts of his cheekbones. “Merlin--you--are you  _ crying _ ?” He’s seen Merlin cry before. Arthur knows how his mouth trembles, the ill-favoured flush that will darken his skin, the queer, angry glint that will shine in his eyes. But Merlin doesn’t look like that. There is horrible grief twisting his features, torturing them into something Arthur doesn’t recognize, something that doesn’t look human. “What happened?” 

“Nothing...nothing happened.” 

“Something must have happened, you don’t--I thought you were mad at me?”

“That’s what made me--I don’t think I can do this anymore.” Merlin’s voice is strange; small and uneven and sour with secrets. Arthur’s hands fall limply to his sides. Cold breath catches in his chest.

“You don’t think you can do what anymore?” he asks, sure that he’s sailing perilously close to the wind. He’s waiting for Merlin to say it, to make it come true, that he’ll have to find another manservant who will wash his clothes in the soap he hates and won’t sit to eat with him and won’t be a creature to fall languidly and inexorably in love with, and instead Merlin whispers, “I love you,” and it’s dizzying how relieved Arthur is to hear it.

“I love you too,” he exhales, and leans forward to kiss Merlin’s forehead, only to flinch back when Merlin jerks away. “What--”

Merlin squeezes his eyes shut. More tears spill down his face, nestling in the bruised hollow at his throat, running into his mouth, and neither of them make a move to wipe them away. “You have to promise I can stay.” 

“Stay?” Arthur asks, frowning. “In my room? You know you can.” 

“In Camelot.” 

“In  _ Camelot _ ? Of course you can stay in Camelot, why wouldn’t you--” he breaks off when Merlin’s hand grips his wrist hard enough to leave a mark. 

“I have to stay,” he says, and there’s steel scraping at the edges of his voice, an untried blade hissing sparks at the tools that try to tame it. “None of it matters if I can’t stay, you understand me? You can do anything else you like, but if you try to banish me, I will raze this tower to the ground.” 

Arthur represses the shudder that threatens to dance up his spine. Merlin has always been stubborn, mulishly so, but this is not Merlin demanding he ride onto the battlefield with Arthur or following him when Arthur has expressly forbidden it. This voice belongs to a defeated king promising he will slit his own throat before giving up his kingdom, and it’s foreign coming from Merlin’s mouth. 

“I don’t know what you mean.” 

“Promise me,” Merlin says almost angrily. “Promise me and I’ll tell you.” 

“I--yes, you can stay,” Arthur says, bewildered. “Do you want to tell me why you’re crying now?” 

Merlin takes a deep breath. It sounds like music, those few moments before the instruments are cut off when the notes are scattering and the singer’s voice begins to crack. “I--I tried not to, I didn’t think I’d have to do much when I was just your servant but now...now everything is different. I thought you would take me to your bed a few times and then get bored and leave me alone to deal with it, but that’s not--”

“You thought I would get bored of you? Even if that were possible, what does any of it have to do with why you’re crying now?” 

“You mean too much to me,” Merlin says softly. “Kilgharrah told me it was a mistake and Gaius told me I would regret it, but I couldn’t stop myself, I couldn’t say no, I couldn’t let you think that I don’t love you--and now I’m throwing all of it away. I can’t do it anymore. Not like this.” 

“Merlin, you’re not making any--”

“I have magic.” 

The words are simple and clean, like the alloy Arthur used to watch the blacksmith burn into knives. For one bizarre moment he’s back there, standing on tiptoe to see the blazing forge, feeling the flames burn his red face and dry lips just to watch liquid metal shine and become something inviolable. Then he blinks and he’s back in his bedroom, darkness hanging over him like a shrine, and Merlin between his legs. 


	3. Arrhythmia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be warned; this chapter contains graphic depictions of a panic attack.

His voice is weak when he realizes he can speak. “What--sweetheart, I--I don’t know what you’re saying.” 

“I have magic,” Merlin says again. “I’m a sorcerer, Arthur.” The tears are gone and Merlin’s face is blazing pale in the blackness, his face still damp with salt that’s already drying into tracks on his skin. His mouth is set into the kind of unswerving resolution Arthur is used to seeing in the mirror before a battle. 

The nausea that surges into Arthur’s stomach and up his throat is arrant and blinding, and he lurches to the side and falls off the bed, certain that he’s going to vomit. A voice in his head wonders if it will be blood. Arthur gags once, twice, three times, braced on his knees on the floor, shaking hand pressed against his mouth so hard it feels like he’ll break a tooth. He can hear Merlin crying again, somewhere past the roar in his ears. 

When he realizes there’s nothing to throw up except for the bitter confusion roiling in his stomach, Arthur leans back onto his trembling heels. He knows his legs won’t support his weight. His eyes slide unwillingly to the bed, but Merlin’s no longer there. He’s somehow gotten to the other side of the room, where he sits with his back pressed against the wall, shaking. 

“Merlin,” Arthur says automatically, but his voice is nothing more than a croak, and Merlin takes the sound as an order of execution. His eyes go wider, brighter, and even from the distance Arthur can see his heels grinding into the stone floor. A harsh sound is torn from Merlin’s throat; if it had been louder, Arthur would have named it a scream. “Merlin,” he says again, and this time Merlin swallows back whatever’s threatening to come up and looks back at him. “You--are you--”

“I’m so sorry,” Merlin chokes out. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so--”

“Stop it!” Arthur shouts, his voice dazzling bright and sharp in the dark, and Merlin flinches back. “I don’t want you to--you never--why didn’t you  _ tell _ me--”

“Tell you?” Merlin repeats faintly. “When? When I came to Camelot? A year after I became your servant? Two years? Three? The first time I saved your life, the last time you saved mine? The first time we slept together, or when I realized I wanted to, the first time you told me you loved me...there was always too much to lose. Or too little chance of staying alive.”

“All this time,” Arthur breathes. His mind is careening wildly out of control, thoughts shrieking and rollicking around his head like a summer thunderstorm. “All this time, I’ve been sleeping with a sorcerer.” 

Merlin’s face twists into something vitriolic. “You’ve been  _ in love  _ with me,” he spits. “Not a  _ sorcerer _ , or a servant or a peasant or a criminal, me. You wanted me. You told me you loved me, you slept with me, you’ve spent every day in my company for eight years.” 

“Stop...stop it.” 

“Stop what?” Merlin is on his feet now, hands curling into fists. “Reminding you who I am? That you’ve picked me a million times over, every second of every day since the first time you told me why you kept me around? You love me, Arthur.”

“I know,” Arthur says. “I know I do.”

Shock flits savagely across Merlin’s face; he hadn’t expected him to say it. Arthur gets to his feet, hand braced against the stone, and stares at him. “I know I do,” he says again. He takes a step closer, and some part of him cries out in anguish at how Merlin presses himself against the wall, expression wary and angry and vulnerable all at once. Arthur’s bare feet are cold against the floor, and every step he takes brings him closer to Merlin. 

“You have magic,” Arthur whispers roughly. “And you kept it a secret from me. You learned magic and practiced it, all while--”

“I didn’t,” Merlin says. His words are an arrhythmia, shaky and life-threatening. “I was--I was born with it.” 

Arthur lets out a long, slow breath. “You...my servant is a sorcerer.” 

Tears well up and spill over Merlin’s grieving features. “Your lover,” he murmurs, already withdrawing from Arthur, already reconciling himself to whatever grim outcome this conversation must have. “Your lover is a sorcerer.” 

“He is,” Arthur whispers. He swallows. He can feel the secrets lapping tranquilly at the base of his throat, clean and cold, tugging at his navel like a ship determined to anchor itself to the bottom of the ocean. He can hardly say the words that shift restlessly at the tip of his tongue, but it is unthinkable not to say them. “And I love him anyway.” 

It’s a moment before the words filter through Merlin’s miasma of fear. Arthur stands stock-still, watching him, waiting for something to change, waiting for him to understand. He’s about to open his mouth and say something, anything to break the silence, when Merlin sucks in a great shuddering gasp like his head is breaking above salt waves, and his knees buckle. Arthur catches him before he can hit the floor and sinks to the ground with him. 

Merlin is crying again, his entire body grappling with tremors so fierce that Arthur leaves livid marks on his skin where he tries to hold him. Merlin’s nails are digging into his arms, beginning to tack with blood where they pierce through Arthur’s flesh. 

“You’re okay,” Arthur says frantically, trying to curb the frantic terror howling inside of him at the sight of Merlin like this, “please--pl--Merlin, you’re okay, I’m still here, I’m--” he’s cut off when Merlin reels to the side to retch onto the floor, choking and coughing and eyes streaming. Arthur drags him back into his arms while Merlin moans and then begins to sob again. He murmurs nonsensical, rhythmic things, and Merlin's breath only comes harder, sucking in air with a ghastly keening drag. Arthur holds him tighter, and the thought of going to Gaius flashes through his mind at least nine times in as many seconds, and every time he resolves to get up new terror wrings his heart and he can’t move. His teeth are grinding, clenched so hard his jaw aches, and he’s not sure if it’s to keep a shriek trapped behind his tongue or if there’s nothing there at all. 

“I’m right here,” he repeats, again and again and again until the words have lost meaning and his mouth is numb, and instead of Merlin’s tears lessening, he goes into a cataclysmic state of hysteria that scares Arthur worse than the crying. 

It’s only after Merlin vomits again and slumps into Arthur’s arms, too weak to work up more than the occasional hitch in his breath that Arthur scrapes together enough sense to scream for a guard. 

\---

People come and knock at the door as the sun clears the horizon. Arthur shouts for all of them to go away and bars the door by mid-morning. The last thing he wants to do is see anyone. Some irrational piece of him is terrified that everything he’s just learned will show if he opens the door, like the magic he’s just discovered will show in the veins in his arms, sorcery will crease his brow and secrets will glare back from his face for others to read and learn. 

It’s too much. He repeats it to himself over and over as he sits by the bed, trying to keep everything Merlin’s told him in his head. He can’t reconcile the Merlin he loves with the man that has just confessed to sorcery in the very chambers he sits in.

“What happened?” Gaius asks, and Arthur jumps; he’d forgotten Gaius was there. His voice sounds exactly the same as it always has; tinged with concern but benign and steady, and Arthur supposes that he himself would employ the same tone had he not seen Merlin last night. 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Arthur says dully. His shoulders ache from sitting in the straight-backed chair for so long, but he can’t make himself move away from the side of the bed. 

He used to hate the tinge of sickness that seemed to linger, creeping, in the air when Gaius was around. Even as a child vials of medicine had winked eerily at him, sitting on crooked shelves in an apothecary that was never empty of patients. Always there was some ill soul lying twisted in the blankets, damp with sweat or other, worse things. And if there were patients, there was family, there were friends, always watching, waiting for the slightest change in demeanor or breath, a blink, a twitch. Clinging to some perverse hope that seemed to laugh at them for how they waited. Arthur had always thought he could never stand to be them, that the echo of false hope would never ring in his ears. It tolls like a bell in his head now, dull and dented and useless. 

Merlin is lying in the rumpled sheets, eyes closed and hair curling placidly around his ears. His hands are open, almost supplicant, and the only evidence of Merlin’s terror the night before lies in the marks on his skin where Arthur had tried to hold him, the wasted state of his clothes, and the red-brown blood beneath his fingernails. Arthur’s blood. 

“You say he had some sort of attack?” Gaius inquires. 

There’s no one else in the room, and just as Arthur is about to open his mouth and lie, the words crumble to nothing on his tongue. Merlin has lived with Gaius since he came to Camelot, child that he was when he came. Gaius has a history of magic, a deep well of knowledge about anything Arthur has ever thought to ask about, and if all that were true, why would Gaius not know that his ward had magic?

A thousand different images flash through Arthur’s head; Gaius’s concern whenever magic was mentioned, his glances towards Merlin when a sorcerer was being condemned, his hesitance in pointing out magic-users...and suddenly Arthur can’t make himself believe Gaius has ever been truthful with him. He doesn’t bother turning his head when he says, “Yes. He came into my room after midnight, looking like death warmed over. He climbed into bed, started crying, and claimed that both you and someone named Kilgharrah didn’t think us being together was a good idea. And after all that came out, Merlin confessed to having been born with magic.” 

A loud, spine-cracking silence settles in the room. It grows abrasive, scraping against Arthur’s eardrums, pricking his skin and making fragile hairs rise on the back of his neck, but he stays still, and waits. 

“Arthur,” Gaius begins carefully, and the sound of his name is enough to snap what thread is left of Arthur’s patience. He turns on Gaius. 

“Are you going to tell me you didn’t know?” he asks from between gritted teeth. He can feel his hands shaking. “Or am I to charge you with harbouring a sorcerer for the past nine years?” 

“You may charge me if you wish.” Gaius’s voice is still mild, as though nothing has changed, and it jars Arthur. “I trust you know that means you would also have to charge Merlin, and then execute him. Putting aside that I do not believe you capable of either of those feats, you would have to admit to yourself that not only has a sorcerer lived within your castle for nearly a decade, but he has also proven himself loyal beyond the scope of the ordinary, saved your life countless times, and--as far as my limited knowledge allows--has fallen in love with you, all the while being acutely aware of the risk he takes every moment that he is in your presence.” 

His answers stuns Arthur into silence. He’s been too used to Gaius’s yielding deference in regard to his father, and this outpouring of loyalty that comes so precariously near judgement is not what he expected. Cool reason, perhaps, an explanation for why Merlin is there, even excuses, bargains to keep Merlin hale and far away from the executioner’s axe. But not the love that rings so clearly through Gaius’s voice, or even the weakness that he has implied within his king, a comment that yesterday Arthur would have called treason. 

“He does love you, Arthur.” Gaius’s voice is gentle now. Arthur doesn’t know why that stings more. “That boy does not risk his life unknowingly, not because you are king, or because you are meant to unite Albion. He would spend his days saving your life and calling it precious if you were nothing more than a stableboy.” 

Something is burning in Arthur’s eyes, tears that he stubbornly refuses to let fall. He waits until Gaius gets up, his familiar gait pacing across the floor, and then the creak of the door as it shuts before his body loosens. Arthur squeezes his eyes shut and stumbles from the chair to the bed blindly, allowing the tears to drip down his face. Merlin shifts in his sleep as Arthur grasps his limp hand and holds it tightly in his own, curving his body to press his forehead against the back of Merlin’s hand, and his neck bends, and his knees fold, and had anyone else seen him, they would have called it a bow. 


	4. Bitter Fruits

“Arthur.” 

Arthur murmurs something unintelligible and shifts to the side. His mouth is parched and has the consistency of a sheep’s coat, his shoulders are sore and every time he breathes, a vague ache crawls up his spine. 

“Arthur.” The whisper is softer this time. There’s a shadow of fingers carding through his hair, a lilt of summer sweetness in the voice, like the first fruits beginning to curve the branches of trees toward the ground. “Arthur, wake up.” 

He lifts his head, blinking hazily at a pale smudge until it clears and coalesces into Merlin’s weary face. Arthur’s eyes widen, and he jolts upward, clumsy and numb. Merlin’s hand falls to his side. The flinch in his arm would have been invisible to anyone else. 

“Merlin.” 

A wan smile crosses Merlin’s face. “You fell asleep with your head on my lap.” 

“Oh. I guess I did.” 

“And when I woke, you were holding my hand,” Merlin says softly. 

Arthur swallows. He stares at Merlin, watching the dust motes dance in the shaft of sunlight that splits across his face, the hair that sticks up at the back of his head, the chapped lips, the maroon-coloured scrape traced like an artist’s sketch across his chin. 

“I didn’t want you to feel that you were alone,” Arthur whispers. 

Merlin squeezes his eyes shut with an expression horribly like pain. When he leans forward, Arthur is already there, climbing onto the bed and pulling him closer, breathing shaky sighs of relief, stroking the black head that’s already buried in the crook between his shoulder and his neck. Every breath, the rough brush of skin and cloth feels like an answered prayer, and Arthur wonders in a daze how he ever could have considered the miracle of blood and bone and flesh anything less than what it is. He can’t hide the tremor in his voice when he speaks again. “If you ever...ever do that to me again...I will make you stay with Gaius for a fortnight, understand?”

Merlin forces his head into a jerky nod, a puppet on strings. 

“No, don’t do that. Don’t do that. Look at me. Mer--Merlin, look at me. At  _ me _ .” 

Arthur cradles Merlin’s head in his hands, and Merlin’s gaze reluctantly slides up to meet his own. Naked fear, stripped bare of any regard for himself, plays in his eyes. His lip is still trembling, and Arthur has to stop himself from crushing Merlin to his own chest in an effort of preservation. To keep that heart beating, scrubbed clean of secrets, for a little while longer.

“I wanted to--I wanted to tell you, Arthur, you have no idea how much, every time I woke you up or put stuff I knew you wouldn't eat on your plate or ducked a swing of your sword--every time, every single time I had to stop myself. I knew it would never be the same, my bones knew it. All of me knew it. I didn’t want--I couldn’t give you up.” 

“You should have known,” Arthur says quietly. “You should’ve known. You should’ve loved me enough to tell me the truth.” 

“I loved you too much.” Merlin’s hands are curling into the sheets. The skin over his knuckles looks like it will split if he tightens his fist anymore. 

“Too much,” Arthur repeats. An insistent voice in the back of his head is telling him he should stop, Merlin needs rest, but he can’t stop the words tumbling gracelessly out of his mouth. “You loved me too much to tell me the truth? To be honest with me?”

“It’s not like that. It’s like--I knew what would happen. Even if you didn’t kill me, it’s another betrayal. You’d have to decide if you loved me more than your own laws, more than your father’s memory.”

“ _ More than my father’s memory _ ?” Arthur asks, nearly speechless from shock. “You think choosing between you and a memory would be so difficult for me that I’d kill you to get out of it?”

“Yes. No! I--I don’t know, Arthur, the whole point was that I never knew! I thought out every scenario in the book, what I would say, what I would do, how I would protect myself if you--if you lashed out, everything. Once I came so close I actually packed before coming up to undress you one night. But I didn’t--I would never think that this is how I’d do it. That I’d be lying in your bed because you--you--” 

“Because I don’t want you to die? Because I’d rather go to the noose myself than see it around your neck? You can't do this to me, Merlin. You can’t make my decision for me, when--”

“I had to,” Merlin argues. “There wasn’t--it was my life hanging in the balance, not yours. I had a responsibility to keep you alive, to keep you safe, and if I’d told you and by some miracle you didn’t want my head on a stick, you would’ve banished me. And I couldn’t keep you alive from a thousand leagues away.”

“You don’t have to keep me alive.  _ I  _ keep  _ you _ alive, that’s how this works.” 

“That’s how you  _ think _ this works,” Merlin mutters. “What do you imagine happened all those times you nearly died and didn’t? Branches from trees that fell just in time for you to dive away from a sword, weapons that miraculously hit the dirt instead of your chest, spears that were set on fire out of nowhere, not to mention all the enchantments I’ve had to somehow lift off of you over the years, assassinations and plots and accidents and tournaments...I have spent the better part of my entire adult life making sure you’re still breathing.” 

Arthur stares at him, jaw hanging open. “You…” 

“Have saved your life so many times I couldn’t possibly remember them all,” Merlin says. “Yes.” 

“Oh,” Arthur says blankly. “So...I should be dead.” 

“The day we met.” 

“Oh,” Arthur says again. He looks down, unseeing, to pick at the fibres of the blanket. 

“Don’t do that,” Merlin says softly. 

“Why not?” 

“Because there are servants who will have to mend it.”

“Could you…” Arthur begins hesitantly. “Could you mend it?” He holds his breath, his eyes locked on Merlin, teetering on a precipice between fear and excitement. The part of him that still belongs to his father is fuzzy with trepidation, and more than that, the tugging sensation that what he wants is wrong, that he’s falling into a hole he won’t be able to climb out of.

Merlin only looks vaguely surprised. “I suppose. But I’d rather you didn’t do it at all.” 

“No--” Arthur exhales in frustration. “With magic. Could you mend it with magic?” 

The surprise is erased, leaving a curiously empty expression. “Why would you want me to do that?” 

“I’ve never seen it. I mean--I’ve never seen magic. I’ve never seen you...perform any magic.” It feels uncomfortable to say such a thing, and it must show, because Merlin’s mouth twists. 

“You can’t even say it.” 

“Merlin,” Arthur begins, and finds he has nothing to say. 

“No, Arthur, if you can’t even say it, then how--how am I supposed to trust you? How am I supposed to know that the second I raise my hand, you’re not going to send me to the cells and start building a pyre?” 

“ _ Trust _ me? If you had trusted me in the first place, we wouldn’t even be here,” Arthur snaps. 

“You’re right, we wouldn’t. I’d be dead.”

The anger and the indignation that roars inside Arthur at those words and the matter-of-fact tone they were spoken in renders him unable to speak. Merlin is extraordinarily, horribly calm, watching him with a calculating gaze like he’s waiting for him to snap. It’s the only thing that keeps Arthur from launching to his feet and throwing something across the room. 

“You...would not be dead,” Arthur says precisely, swallowing his anger back with a staggering effort. “And I--I regret that you think that.” 

Merlin actually laughs. “You regret that? Do you remember when you came to Ealdor a few months after I came into your service, and Will died? And you thought he was a sorcerer? My mother spent that entire time telling me you cared for me enough to overlook my magic. And I was still watching Will’s remains burn when you came up to me, said you knew he was a sorcerer, and told me I shouldn’t have kept that from you. And then you left.”

“Merlin, I--I--I’m sorry, but I couldn’t have possibly know that you--”

“No,” Merlin cuts him off. “No, you couldn’t have known. And instead of extending sympathy, you chose to imply a threat if I ever kept anything from you again. So no, I didn’t trust you, and I don’t regret it.” 

“You don’t regret it?” Arthur says, voice beginning to rise. “So if you could do it all over again, you’d--what, do the exact same thing? Keep me in the dark for the better part of a decade and fuck me into the sheets every night, knowing you were lying the whole time?” 

Instead of shrinking back, like Arthur expects him to, controlled fury flares in Merlin’s face. “You have no idea,” he says tightly. “No idea what my life has been like, what I’ve had to hide, what I’ve had to do all for  _ love of you _ …The people I’ve killed, the grief I’ve swallowed, all to keep you alive and calling me stupid and throwing me in the stocks. And all the while your father would’ve slit my throat with his teeth if it meant I’d never saved your life once. Would you trust the son of the man who would do that to you?” 

“So that’s what you think of me,” Arthur says, scarcely keeping his own temper in check. “A son of my father, nothing more. You have no idea-- _ no idea  _ what sorcery has done to Camelot, no idea how it has torn the kingdom apart.” 

“I didn’t know you were a historian,” Merlin snaps. 

_ “I didn't know you were a sorcerer!”  _ Arthur screams, the words tearing raw and bloody from his throat, and suddenly he realizes he’s on his feet and Merlin is still looking up at him, the same emptiness on his face. It looks like a mask, like there’s something roiling beneath it, but the mask is stone and will not be undone.

Arthur’s words are still ringing in his own head, his throat stinging and his chest heaving when Merlin sits up. Arthur doesn’t see anything, no bang of smoke or flash of light, but in the hearth across the room, flames suddenly spring to life, roaring high and hot and licking hungrily at the brick. When he looks, the flames are blindingly white, utterly colourless, and Arthur cannot stop his flinch. His eyes water from the glance he took.

Merlin’s gaze is steady and hard. “Do you now?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never liked the fics where Merlin prostrates himself at Arthur's feet when he admits to having magic, bc as scary as it is, I always thought Merlin would be angry too, and I want to keep their relationship on as equal of a basis as I can manage. I wanted to use this chapter to underline Merlin's anger rather than Arthur's betrayal even as we're seeing it through Arthur's eyes, so I hope I managed that here :)


End file.
